I've been cranking these out one after another, and you know why? Because I'm nearing a soft end point, and I'm eager to start a new story. I hope you appreciate the work I'm putting into this, but I also actually don't care whether you appreciate it or not. By soft end point, I mean that because of the way this story is, there's nothing I can point to and say "Yep, that's the end." So I'll probably continue updating this after I move on to other stories, it's just that I'm not going to be heavily focused on it. After Maggie fully joins the group, updates will drop from semi regularly, to just whenever I happen to feel like writing a chapter.

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Stopping where the concrete met the grass, Maggie couldn't help the swelling of uncertainty that rose in her chest as she looked across the divide to where the group was sitting. She forced herself to move forward though.

When she first called Carol to set up this meeting, she'd hoped that she could talk to Lincoln one on one. Thinking about it, she supposed that was a little unrealistic. She'd never seen Lincoln without one of them. Walking the distance now… Well, they were just talking to each other but… Each step was a little bit harder than the last. She felt like she was walking to her executioners. Finally coming up to the copse of trees they'd chosen as their spot, she stopped.

"Hey." Somehow it soothed the frayed edges of her nerves to be able to have the first word.

"Oh, Hi Maggie." Turning away from Haiku, Lincoln nodded in greeting to her. "You wanted to talk to us?" His head tilted as he smiled, showing the puzzlement that hid beneath.

"Yeah." Maggie honestly wasn't sure how to think about the fact that Lincoln smiled at her so easily. It made her nervous. It shouldn't, but it did, and she didn't know why… Not Really anyway. The fact that he was smiling at her should mean that her idea was more likely to work, right? She… Wanted to get to know them… Being rejected after all her effort would be disappointing, and frustrating. Maybe that's why his smile made her tense? "I…" The words caught in her throat, stubbornly refusing to be heard, and she sucked in a deep breath. She held it for a second, and then let it out. "I wanted to know if you had an… Opening, I guess…"

"An opening?" Something Anne responded, her expression shifting gradually from confused to considering. "Are you asking to… Join our group?" She asked as though she couldn't believe she was asking it.

"…Yes…"

"What, really!?" Anne leaned back in shock, even as the same emotion rippled across the rest of the group. "Why?"

"I…" Lincoln spoke before she could answer the question. "I'm flattered, I think. I don't know why you would want to join us, but I want it to be because you want to be friends with us." He was silent for a few seconds, but nobody spoke up to interrupt. "I'm sorry." He said, though Maggie didn't know what he was apologizing for. "I shouldn't push my desires on you, especially since we've barely met." His tender smile speared her in place. "I never thought that when this all started… When I started this… That this would happen. I love my family, I really do." His tone, his expression, his body language; it all drove the sincerity in him through her. It was almost painful, really. A dull ache that she didn't know the origin of. "But I had to win them over, before they agreed to join my family, and I understand that. Even these days, I worry that they only stay with me, because of everyone else." He sighed heavily when Highlights reached out to place a hand on his shoulder and Anne grabbed his hand, but he relaxed into their hold. "It's not rational, I know…" He was silent for a few more seconds. "I… Look, as much as I want you to be doing this because you saw a fun looking group of people who you'd like to hang out with, I don't think that's why you're here." His expression twisted with self directed frustration. "And I'm sorry, I really am, but you wouldn't have approached us in this way if it were that simple. I'm sorry." Sighing, his eyes dropped to the ground between them for a moment, before he looked back up. Maggie could see it behind his eyes, his honesty. "Maybe it really is that simple. If it is, I'm sorry." He said again. "And if it's not, you don't have to tell us what the truth is if you don't want to, but please… don't lie to me."

At his plead, Maggie felt all her prepared half truths and lies evaporate away into the ether. She didn't want to lie to him. She didn't want to tell him the truth either, but… She worked her jaw, and opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again after nothing came out. In the face of everything he'd admitted to her, it wouldn't feel right to say nothing in return, but she didn't know what to say. She didn't have anything to say. Nothing she was comfortable with saying.

"I… don't have a… very good home life." So she settled for something that she wasn't comfortable with saying, because if she didn't, she'd never say anything at all. Closing her eyes, and clenching her fists at her sides, she forced herself to speak. "My parents are overbearing, and miserable, and I don't have many places I can escape from them. I saw your group, and I…" She took a deep breath. "I was attracted to it." A edge of guilt cut through her, at her misleading conclusion. She didn't lie though. She didn't, she just… Used words that implied something other than what she meant. It wasn't a lie. It wasn't.

"Thank you for being honest with me." He was smiling again, but it didn't make Maggie feel very good. It just made her guilt cut deeper.

"Yeah…"

"Would it be okay with you, if my family and I talked it through before we gave you an answer?"

"Yeah…"

A chapter for you to look forward to is the one where Lincoln's sisters finally confront him. Unfortunately, that's not happening before I start my new story.

As Maggie left hearing range, Carol turned to the group. She scanned over each of them in turn, attempting to get some feel for how they all felt about this. For her, it was… complicated. Her experience talking to the girl left her with an interesting impression. She was clearly incredibly socially awkward. She was also fairly perceptive, that Carol had seen. But that wasn't enough to base a decision on.

"So, what do you guys think?" She was drawn from her thoughts by Lincoln. He glanced around at them all earnestly.

"What do you think Lincoln?" She returned the question. She didn't know that Lincoln was the most effected by this, but he'd be the most impacted. While the group was just as much hers, as it was his, as it was anyone else's in the groups, he was the one who needed it most.

"I… I don't know." She wanted to reach out and comfort him, when guilt flashed across his face, but she settled for shifting a bit closer. "At the beginning, I said that I didn't want this to be a harem. It's not… We all love each other, I'm not the only one holding this all together." When his face twisted with anxious doubt, she did reach out to him.

"You're not." She assured him. She knew that as much as he was afraid that they were only there to be with each other, he feared that they were only there for him even more.

"Yeah…" He took a steadying breath, his lips curling back into a smile as he looked up at her. "Yeah. I know." It wasn't the girls fault, but she couldn't help but hate how Maggie's proposal was effecting her brother. "I just don't know how to think about it." He stared past them, into the thickening trees. "I started this because I needed it, but I… I don't want to… If she's not looking for that kind of relationship, I don't know what to do. I don't want to reject her without explanation."

"Well…" Ronnie Anne grabbed their collective attention. "We don't have to reject her, if you don't want to." Her eyes narrowed in thought. "We could accept her into the group, without accepting her into our relationship…"

"Does she know what kind of relationship we have?" Sam asked.

"Well, she knows what kind of relationship I have with Lincoln." Carol mused aloud, continuing when everyone turned to her. "She managed to figure it out when we were talking the other day."

"We should still ask." Haiku murmured from the back.

Man, I can't wait until I get to start my next story.

After they waved her over again, Maggie stood stiffly, waiting for their decision.

"Do you know that we're all dating each other?" Maggie opened her mouth to respond to his question, but closed it again. She knew that Carol was dating Lincoln, and she'd suspected that they others were as well, but she didn't know the girls were dating each other… Unless he didn't mean what she thought. She didn't get the feeling that the girls thought of each other romantically, but they were pretty close.

"No." She settled on.

"Did you… Want to date us?"

"I… Wouldn't be against that kind of relationship." How not to sound weirdly eager, by Maggie Blake.

"Alright." He nodded. "Well, would you be okay with us taking it slow?" Relief flooded through her, and a weight lifted off her chest, at his question. They were accepting her.

"Okay…" It wasn't quite what she was trying for when she had her idea, but she could work with it. She'd just have to think of a way to apologize to them after it was all said and done.

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Chapter notes:

I don't know if I'm totally happy with this chapter. It felt slightly awkward to write, and I don't know if I was up to my usual standards when simulating character interactions.